Author: encore

How about a news blast of stories about theatre arts in Seattle and beyond?

Seattle Repertory Theatre‘s world premiere of Lizard Boy, a production about monsters, and love, and Mount Saint Helens, is making waves. KUOW recently discussed it.

The London Symphony is about to make its Benaroya Hall debut soon. The Seattle Times took note, here.

Did you know that departed principal ballerina Noelani Pantastico has returned to the Pacific Northwest Ballet? It’s true.

Have you seen the 5th Avenue Theatre/ACT co-production of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris? This City Arts review says it’s “dazzlingly sung.”

Speaking of 5th Ave: they are going to develop a musical based on a novel written by Anne Rice. Read more about it here.

Also, 5th Ave announced the cast for its upcoming Jasper in Deadland (our sneak peak here), which replaces the straight-to-Broadway Something Rotten! and it includes Book of Mormon‘s Matt Doyle and New Yorker Sydney Shepherd in the lead roles, plus Andi Alhadeff, Kyle Bernbach, Jared Michael Brown, Kyle Robert Carter, Taryn Darr, Sarah Rose Davis, Frederick Hagreen, Louis Hobson, Diana Huey, Brandi Chavonne Massey, Caety Sagoian and Evan Woltz. Local phenom Brandon Ivie will direct.

KING FM and Seattle Symphony are now collaborating on a new streaming channel. Download beautiful music directly into your ears here.

Have you seen Tartuffe at Seattle Shakespeare Company? Seattle Gay News says it’s delightful.

Speight Jenkins, the former general director of Seattle Opera, was awarded a medal recently from France.

How do you find opera’s next stars? The Wall Street Journal looks into the answer.

Do you like theatre? Do you like listening to podcasts? Do you want to listen to podcasts about theatre? You’re in luck.

Finally, do you know what’s good for a healthy heart? Classical music.

The 5th Avenue Theatre recently announced a major new commission. Novelist Anne Rice, most known for Interview with the Vampire, also wrote the novel Cry to Heaven. It is this book, bringing to life the otherworldly society of the 18th century castrati, that the 5th Avenue Theatre has commissioned. Music and lyrics will be by three-time Grammy, Oscar and Golden Globe nominee Matthew Wilder with a book by Roy Freirich and Debrah Neal.

Based on Anne Rice’s third novel, Cry to Heaven follows Tonio, a teenage boy betrayed by his brother and forced into a life he never expected – a public life of celebrity in the world of the castrati, and a private life devoted to revenge. The castrato, is a type of classical male singing voice produced by castration of the singer before puberty, was all the rage in the 1700s but prepubescent castration for this purpose was greatly diminished by the 18th century.

Composer and lyricist Matthew Wilder has also composed the score for the musical Princesses, which debuted at the 5th Avenue Theatre in 2005. He’s perhaps most well known for having composed the Disney movie Mulan. Wilder was nominated for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe awards for his work on that movie. His songs have also been recorded by the likes of Selena Gomez, Aaron Neville, Puff Daddy, Stevie Wonder and Bette Midler, amongst others.

The 5th Avenue Theatre’s New Works Program is nationally recognized, having premiered 17 original Broadway-caliber musicals since 2001.

Care to hear a castrato’s voice?

The Seattle Symphony has more Grammy Awards than Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, Diana Ross, The Beach Boys, Queen and The Doors combined. Those musical acts never won a Grammy Award. Last night, The Seattle Symphony won one. 

Become Ocean already garnered the Pulitzer Prize for music. Commissioned by the Seattle Symphony, it had its world premiere at Benaroya Hall and they played it at Carnegie Hall last spring. 

SSO was nominated for other classical Grammys: Best Orchestral Performance (Dutilleux: Symphony No. 1: Tout Un Monde Lointain; The Shadows of Time); Best Classical Instrumental Solo (Xavier Phillips for the Dutilleux symphony); Best Engineered Performance (for Become Ocean) and SSO’s recording engineer, Dmitriy Lipay, was nominated for Producer of the Year.

Become Ocean:

Dutilleux Symphony No. 1:

OPERA America, the national service organization for opera, announced that Seattle Opera Chairman of the Board John Nesholm has received the 2015 National Opera Trustee Recognition Award. The award, now in its eigth year, honors individuals for exemplary leadership, generosity and audience-building efforts on behalf of their respective opera companies.

Aidan Lang, Seattle Opera’s new general director, said, “The support and leadership of John Nesholm stands alone in our company’s history. No other donor has been as generous with their time, expertise, and gifts to the organization.”

Nesholm has done more than support and lead the Seattle Opera; he helped reshape the cultural landscape of Seattle itself. His firm, LMN Architects, served as lead architect for Benaroya Hall, home of the Seattle Symphony. He helped transform Seattle Opera’s performing arts space into the Marion Oliver McCaw Hall and he also worked with world famous architect Rem Koolhaas on the award-winning Seattle Public Library.  Within the opera organization, he previously served as board president before becoming chairman. He’s worked on the facilities committee, finance committee, and governance committee, and has presided over the company’s annual meetings for more than a decade. 

He won this year’s 2015 National Opera Trustee Recognition Award along with James H. McCoy of Hawaii Opera Theatre, Sue Bienkowski, of Long Beach Opera, and Frank Kuehn of Opera Southwest.

With Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel coming soon, the full cast has been announced for the 5th Avenue Theatre/Spectrum Dance Theater collaboration. With Tony Award-nominated choreographer Donald Byrd at the creative table, under the direction of 5th Avenue Theatre’s Producing Artistic Director Bill Berry, rehearsals have begun.

Named “the best musical of the 20th century” by Time Magazine, and a personal favorite of Richard Rodgers himself, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel tells the story of carnival barker Billy Bigelow and mill worker Julie Jordan. Their romance comes at the price of both their jobs. He attempts a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child. Things go wrong but he is given a chance to make things right.

The coming production will star Brandon O’Neill as Billy Bigelow. O’Neill returns to Seattle following his Broadway debut in Disney’s Alladin. Other roles include Collins in the 5th Avenue Theatre’s acclaimed production of RENT, Hanuman in Ramayana at ACT Theatre, and Gabe in the world premiere musical First Date.

Laura Griffith will play Julie Jordan. She’s played in several roles on the 5th Avenue Theatre stage including Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View, the Lady of the Lake in Monty Python’s Spamalot, and Cunnegonde in Candide.

Other actors in the production include Anne Allgood, Eric Ankrim, Allen Fitzpatrick, Cynthia Jones, and Joshua Downs.

Here’s a clip from the 1956 movie of Carousel, starring Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae, singing “If I Loved You”:

The Seattle Symphony’s been busy. As they gear up for their performance with legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman they announced several new additions to the Seattle Symphony family.

Spanish conductor Pablo Rus Broseta has been named Seattle Symphony’s Douglas F. King Assistant Conductor starting in September 2015. Rus Broseta has previously served as Assistant Conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liege in Belgium, the Valencia Youth Symphony Orchestra in Spain and the Dutch National Opera Academy. With the Seattle Symphony, he will conduct a wide variety of concerts in the 2015-16 season. Here’s a clip of him conducting:

The Seattle Symphony also announced the appointment of Ruth Reinhardt as Conducting Fellow for the 2015-16 season. Reinhardt was recently named Chief Conductor of the Lincoln Center Chamber Orchestra and is currently finishing her Master of Music degree in Conducting at The Jullliard School.

Violinist Cordula Merks was recently appointed as Seattle Symphony’s Assistant Concertmaster. She has been a member of the Seattle Symphony’s violin section since March 2011. Merks has been guest concertmaster with several orchestras, including the Dresden Philharmonic and the Portuguese National Opera.

Finally, Seattle Symphony welcomed Eric Jacobs to their clarinet section. Jacobs has played previously with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Los Angeles Opera, amongst others. Here is Jacobs playing in a concert at USC’s Newman Hall:

Tyrone Brown is a freelance director and producer who coaxes music and purpose out of thorny topics like race, history and identity. He works with Brownbox Theatre, a company dedicated to re-imagined Black theatre, and he’s an MFA alumnus of Seattle University as well as the prestigious Drama League Directors Project in New York. Recent directorial successes include last summer’s acclaimed Passing Strange at ACT and Black Like Us at Annex.

Brown joined me for this post-Christmas edition of Five Friday Questions.

What’s the best performance you’ve seen lately? 

Now I’m Fine by Ahamefule Oluo at On The Boards. It was a truly original and inspiring work of art, a near-perfect combination of comedy, music (big band), theatre and performance art. Bravo, Ahamefule Oluo, okanomodé, Samantha Boshnack, Josh Rawlings, Evan Flory-Barnes, D’Vonne Lewis and anyone else involved in the production. Bravo!

What’s your favorite place to go after a show? 

LUCID Lounge in the University District, Plum Bistro and Lost Lake Cafe on Capitol Hill, Island Soul in Columbia City, or any Yogurtland.

What music gets you pumped up? 

Lately, anything by Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington with a dash of Kendrick Lamar and Mary J. Blige.

What do you listen to when you’re sad?

Billy Strayhorn and Billie Holiday.

What’s your strategy for coping with the long Seattle winter?

Listening to music, going to the movies, watching House of DVF, getting laid and plenty of sleep. Probably in that order.

What’s the most useful thing anyone’s ever taught you about working in theatre?

Work on the end of the play first, the importance of recording and archiving your work, and that “the devil is in the details.”

When the Seattle Symphony launched their in-house label last spring, it’s doubtful they considered the possibility that among the first batch of releases would be six (SIX!) Grammy nominations including three for their very first release, Works by Dutilleux, two for Become Ocean by John Luther Adams (an SSO-commisioned work) and a Producer of the Year nod for engineer Dimitriy Lipay. This marks the most Grammy nominations in a single year of SSO’s entire 111-year history.

The nominations are:

Works by Dutilleux 
Best Orchestral Performance
Best Classical Instrumental Solo by Xavier Phillips 
Best Engineered Performance

Become Ocean by John Luther Adams
Best Contemporary Composition
Best Engineered Performance

Producer of the Year
Dimitriy Lipay

The 57th Grammy Awards ceremony will be held February 8. 

These technologically-enhanced pointe shoes, called Electronic Traces, record the pressure and movement of a dancer’s feet on the ground and transmit them to a mobile device, providing a digital record of elegant motion. The resulting images are reminiscent of Hitsuzendo, the Zen art of calligraphic brushwork. Imagine the PNB’s next performance immortalized with these Arduino-powered devices!  

Here’s a video of the E-Traces in action: